Cake Smash - Tips and Tricks

I used to look at cake smash photos and think "...ARE THEY CRAZY!?"  The mess looked simply horrible.  I mean, frosting is not super easy to wipe up.  It seems to stick to just about everything.  They gave about thirty handfuls of frosting to a wiggly, squirmy bundle of joy who has no concept of cleanliness.  Right.  Just the thought of sticky, buttery goo all over someone's house still sends shivers up my spine.

Not to mention, once he puts his adorable, grimy hands in that cake, it is ruined.  No one is going to want to eat that cake.  Do you know how hard it is for me to see a cake and then not get to eat it?  It's basically impossible.  You are wasting an entire cake so you can spend hours cleaning it up.

So, naturally, we had a quiet birthday party for my son's first birthday that centered around a cake smash.

Huh?  Why the change of heart? As I started thinking about it more, I realized that I could change a few things about the traditional cake smash to make it actually kind of fun.  Here are a few tips and tricks that I did to make what I once thought was an incredibly stressful event to a super fun day.

1.  Take your cake smash outside
You know what's great about doing your cake smash outside?  There is virtually no clean up!  Your baby can run wild and smear neon blue icing all over the grass and throw pieces of cake ten feet, and it's not a problem.  The birds and squirrels will probably thank you for the snack! If he does manage to hit something important, just get the hose out.

Also, your photos will probably turn out amazing because natural sunlight is the best light!

2. Move everything of value away from baby
Move everything that could get ruined or that is difficult to clean at least ten feet away from the baby.  That includes you and your outfit!

3. Put baby in an outfit you don't mind ruining
For me, this was a cheap "wild one" outfit I found on Amazon.  I was planning to use the outfit as pajamas after the cake smash because I thought the neon blue frosting would stain.  However, it came out after one wash, so he still wears the outfit outside all the time.

4. Think about the background
Place your baby in front of something that you will actually want in the pictures.  I chose to put Little Harp in a grassy patch in our backyard in front of a hibiscus bush.  I also put a couple of things from his room behind him (But not too close! Remember tip #2!) because they went with the theme and are special to us.

5. Bake a second cake
Save yourself some heartache and bake two cakes: one for smashing and one for eating.  Furthermore, make the cake for eating better quality than the cake for smashing.  He is just going to fling that cake everywhere and you deserve something tasty!

6. Take a step back
Now that you are totally prepared to handle the mess, take a step back and allow your baby to explore the new treat in front of them.  It's so adorable to see their first reactions.  Little Harp smiled happily and then gave me a sideways look while he poked the cake as if to determine whether or not cake poking was allowed.  The picture of his questioning expression is now one of my favorite photos of him.

7.  Take pictures of the little things
Take pictures of everything.  The setup, his hands, his feet, and his frosting-covered outfit all became super cute photos in my experience.

That is how I went from cringing at the idea of a cake smash to making a blog post about Little Harp's cake smash.  It seems that all of my pre-concieved notions about cake smashes were completely wrong, but I guess that's pretty much how parenting has gone so far.